A printing method and apparatus includes fingerprinting a sheet of printable media such as paper to obtain a fingerprint. The fingerprint is encrypted using an encryption key known only to the user wanting to print the document. The encrypted fingerprint is then encoded and transferred to the document as machine readable information.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method for printing an electronic document comprising: a first computer system receiving from a second computer system, separate from the first computer system, a communication to print a document; transmitting to the second computer system fingerprint data for at least a first sheet of printable media on which the document is to be printed, the fingerprint data based on data obtained from intrinsic structure of the first sheet of printable media; receiving from the second computer system encrypted fingerprint data and a first decryption key, the encrypted fingerprint data comprising an encrypted form of the fingerprint data produced by the second computer system, the first decryption key suitable for decrypting the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the fingerprint data; and printing the document on the first sheet of printable media, including transferring machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the encrypted fingerprint data and the first decryption key can be obtained from the machine readable information.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of transmitting fingerprint data includes scanning a first area of the first sheet of printable media with a beam of light to obtain optical data based on measurements of light scattered from intrinsic structure of the surface of the first area and processing the optical data to produce the fingerprint data.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of both the encrypted fingerprint data and the first decryption key.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving from the second computer system a hash value computed from a hash operation performed on the document to be printed, wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of the encrypted fingerprint data, the first decryption key, and the hash value.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the fingerprint data is transmitted to the second computer system in unencrypted form.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of transmitting fingerprint data includes encrypting the obtained data to produce encrypted data, the fingerprint data comprising the encrypted data and a second decryption key suitable for decrypting the encrypted data to recover the obtained data.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein encrypting the obtained data includes encrypting the obtained data with a second encryption key.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the transferring includes encrypting the encrypted fingerprint data whereby the machine readable information comprises an encryption of the encrypted fingerprint data and a second decryption key suitable for decrypting the encryption of the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the encrypted fingerprint data.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the transferring includes either printing the machine readable information on the first sheet of printable media, or storing the machine readable information in an electronic memory of a tag embedded in the first sheet of printable media.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein the fingerprint data is obtained from a first area of the first sheet of printable media, the method further comprising generating additional fingerprint data for additional areas of the printable media, wherein the steps of transmitting and receiving are performed for the additional fingerprint data, wherein additional machine readable information is transferred to the first sheet of printable media.
11. A printing device comprising: a control component configured to control operations in the printing device and to communicate with a computer system that is separate from the printing device and is a source for print requests; a source of printable media; a fingerprinter operable to obtain fingerprint data from a sheet of printable media, the fingerprint data being determined based on an intrinsic structure of the sheet of printable media; and a printer component operable to produce printed matter on a sheet of printable material, the source of printable media configured to provide a first sheet of printable media in response to receiving a request from the computer system to print an electronic document, the control component further configured to: cause the fingerprinter to obtain data from a portion of the first sheet of printable media; transmit the fingerprint data to the computer system; receive fingerprint information from the computer system comprising encrypted fingerprint data produced by the computer system and a first decryption key suitable for decrypting the encrypted fingerprint data to thereby recover the fingerprint data; cause the printer component to produce printed matter on the first sheet of printable media; and transfer machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the fingerprint information can be obtained from the machine readable information.
12. The device of claim 11 wherein the fingerprint data is based on optical data obtained from measurements of light scattered from intrinsic structure of the surface of a first area of the first sheet of printable media.
13. The device of claim 11 wherein the machine readable information comprises indicia printed on the first sheet of printable media.
14. The device of claim 11 wherein the machine readable information comprises an encoding of the fingerprint information.
15. The device of claim 14 wherein the fingerprint information further comprises a hash value computed from a hash operation performed on the electronic document to be printed.
16. The device of claim 11 further comprising a writer device configured to transmit data to a data store of an electronic tag embedded in a sheet of printable media, wherein the machine readable information comprises data transmitted by the writer device to the data store of an electronic tag embedded in the first sheet of printable media.
17. The device of claim 11 the source of printable media provides the first sheet of printable media by dispensing a single sheet of printable media.
18. The device of claim 11 wherein the control component is further configured to encrypt the obtained data to produce encrypted data wherein the fingerprint data comprises the encrypted data.
19. The device of claim 11 wherein the control component is further configured to encrypt the fingerprint information.
20. A method for printing an electronic document at a first computer system comprising: receiving from a second computer system, separate from the first computer system, a request to print a document; transmitting to the second computer system fingerprint data for a first sheet of printable media on which the document is to be printed, the fingerprint data determined from an intrinsic property of the first sheet of printable media, wherein the second computer system encrypts the fingerprint data and stores the encrypted fingerprint data and a first decryption key in a data store, the first decryption key suitable for recovering the fingerprint data from the encrypted fingerprint data; receiving from the second computer system a location indication which can be used to obtain from the data store the encrypted fingerprint data and the first decryption key stored therein; and printing the document on the first sheet of printable media, including transferring machine readable information to the first sheet of printable media, wherein the location indication can be obtained from the machine readable information.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
July 28, 2006
June 8, 2010
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